One Moment
by The Treacle Tart
Summary: SLASH - Sometimes it takes more than time to heal all wounds. SLASH HP-RW COMPLETE


**Title:** One Moment

**Rating:** PG-13

**Pairing:** Harry/Ron.

**Summary:** Sometimes it takes more than time to heal all wounds.
    
    **Author's notes**:  Many thanks to abagail89 for her help and encouragement.  All remaining error belong to me.

**One Moment**

_On my skin, my scars divide,_

_Who I was and who I've become._

_Water turned to wine and back,_

_Leaving me reborn in soft red waves_.

It was easier before, when they just hated him.  It gave him something to fight against and to fight for.   

Aunt Petunia in her crisp gingham dress and too shiny pearls barking orders through gritted teeth.  Dudley punching him when there was nothing on the television, kicking him when his hands were otherwise occupied with his second before-dinner snack.  Uncle Vernon looking like a bloated walrus in his leather armchair, spitting scathing remarks meant to cut him down.

A lifetime of training made those moments easy to handle.  

Now they just ignored him, pretending he didn't exist at all.  They forgot to order, abuse, and insult him.  They just forgot he existed, and seemed happier for it.  

He had the freedom to come and go as he pleased, to eat what he wanted, to read where he felt inclined.  Hedwig could fly in or out of the house; his books, sprawled all over the dining room table.   If he placed a glass down, that's where it would remain. He went from being the object of scorn and hatred to being air.  And he wondered which was better. 

What pained him more was that despite the fact he was isolated, he was never alone.  Harry knew that at any given moment  someone was watching his every move.  Some member of the Order was making sure he was still alive.  Some toady in the Death Eater hierarchy was probably doing the same. There was the occasional phone call or obligatory letter, and once, a box of blue feathers from Luna Lovegood. But otherwise his contact with other people was limited.

In the beginning of the summer he tried to convince himself that it was all for the best -- there was too much to think about and the silence would be welcome.  He didn't feel like talking to anyone…answering questions…thinking.  As the days turned into weeks and heat of the summer began to cling tightly to his small frame, he found he needed the distraction his fractured home life offered.  But there was none.  

There was nothing.  Nothing but the memory of Sirius's death.  Nothing but the look of confusion and loss on his haggard features.  Nothing but that veil mocking him with gentle ripples of fabric in a lifeless breeze.

And there was the prophecy.

Words that burned him more than the summer sun. Words that echoed in his ears and left marks on his skin, that tore him from the inside out, starting at the place that held the memories of his parents and ending with the look on Ron's face just as they said their good byes.  

Those times were the hardest, the times when he would lay in the garden, the sting of fire and heat on his tight dry skin, seeing the unrelenting mental film of Ron's unconscious form falling to and lying broken on the floor of some Ministry room.  Harry would wander around the house which suddenly felt far too big, and see Ron's eyes which never regained their luster after the attack. Ron, whose letters seemed written by another person.  Ron, who kept getting hurt because of his poor judgment in picking friends.

In three days Harry would be free to leave number 4, Privet Drive and spend the rest of the summer with the Weasleys, and for the first time in his life, he didn't want to go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a clear June morning and a cool breeze offered a moment's respite from the unnatural heat of the summer.  He was only half packed when a Ministry car came to take him to the Weasley's.  He stared at his clothes and books and thought, just for a moment, "How bad would it be to stay?"  In the end he threw everything into his trunk and carried it down the stairs.

The Durselys had already left on some trip or another, they didn't say to where, but were gone before Harry woke up.  All the same Harry felt compelled to leave a note saying goodbye.

_I'm going to stay with the Weasleys._

_I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer._

_Harry._

It seemed foolish, but he felt better leaving them proof of his existence.  Someone would have to touch the letter, to read it or discard it.  They would have to acknowledge it, acknowledge him.

With his things in the trunk of the car and Hedwig perched in her cage in the seat next to him, he sat in the backseat and watched silently as number 4, Privet Drive disappeared behind him.   He watched the houses pass him, blur until he could only see a ribbon of dank brown.  A curious fingertip traced swirling patterns in the glass. 

He shivered in the cold of the air-conditioned car, pulling his arms inside his t-shirt and wrapping them around his ribs.   He brought his knees up and huddled in the large seat, closing his eyes as exhaustion washed over him.  It was the gentle voice of Molly Weasley that woke him up much later.

"Harry, dear," she said softly. "Harry. You're home."

Confusion slowly crept over his listless features as he looked up at Mrs. Weasley, into the place where a round, rose-cheeked face once lived.  _Home,_ she said.  _I'm home_. But home was something he didn't have.  Home was a place where others lived.  Home never was for Harry Potter.

"Ron?" he rasped.

Her smile fell just the slightest bit.  "He's with Bill.  They'll be here soon.  He's…he's very happy you're coming."

It was an odd thing to say, and she seemed to sense that as much as Harry.  He wondered if it felt so false because nothing felt real to him anymore or simply because it was false and he was finally perceptive enough to realize that.

He grabbed Hedwig and exited the car, walking to the boot to retrieve his things.  It was only after he thanked the driver and absent-mindedly watched him drive away that he bothered to look at his surroundings, to look at the teetering, lopsided outline of the Burrow.  He almost asked why they were here and not Grimmauld Place, but he quickly realized whatever the answer, it wouldn't be one he wanted to hear.

"Why don't you go and get settled into Ron's room?  I'll make us some lunch."  A warm hand on his shoulder gave a gentle squeeze. Molly Weasley was nothing else if not consistent.  Affection, comfort, and food always at the ready.  Harry took a moment to chastise himself for ever feeling resentful of her maternal interference; she deserved better from him.

Within minutes he found himself in Ron's room, with its orange walls and small window.  A cot had already been set up for him, and the plush pillow and flowered coverlet neatly placed there was too enticing to refuse.  He laid back and stared at the ceiling wondering if anyone would mind if he never left the room.

Hedwig gave an indignant hoot and Harry reluctantly got up to let her out of her cage.  She immediately flew to the window and hooted impatiently until she was free.  He opened the window and watched her fly around the garden. Hedwig seemed quite happy to be here and he felt suddenly that perhaps he should be, too.

He made to return to his cot when some papers under a book on Ron's old desk caught his attention.  It looked like Ron was doing  some school work and Harry was more than a little surprised that his friend was working on something so early in the summer. Harry walked to the desk and picked up the book only to see a face staring back at him. 

She had long hair that fell in waves and curls around her oval face. Her eyes were deep set and large, her nose, slightly turned up.  Her lips, full and dark, were curved in a small smile.  She was beautiful, delicate, and almost otherworldly. The picture was a simple pencil sketch on parchment, but was meticulously detailed and lovingly drawn.  One didn't have to be an expert to see that there was something special between the artist and the subject, something so palpable that Harry had to swallow hard before he could put it down.

It was then he noticed the others.

There must have been a hundred pictures, a hundred portraits of this unknown woman: sitting in a garden, reading a book, walking, laughing, sleeping, and one very intimate portrait of the back of her nude torso as she sat looking out a window.

Harry fought a strange tightness that seemed to be crushing his stomach. 

The sound of footsteps creaking along the corridor startled him.  He gathered the drawings, replaced the book, and quickly sat on his cot. 

"Harry." Mrs. Weasley entered after briefly knocking at the door.  "Why don't you come down and have a bit of something to eat, dear."

"Yes…thank you."  He rose stiffly and walked to the door, his eyes darting to the desk, and the book, the questions he wanted to ask bubbling inside him.  

He sat quietly as Mrs. Weasley fluttered about him, talking about the neglected garden or the twin's new shop.  Harry noted she rolled her eyes when she mentioned Fred and George, but she couldn't keep the little bit of motherly pride from creeping into her voice as she conceded that their business had started off well.  Just as he was respectfully declining a second sandwich, the front door opened and Bill Weasley entered followed by someone Harry could only assume to be his best friend for the last five years.  

Ron looked old.  There was really no other way to say it.  His face had thinned and his shoulders widened. The softness of his chin and cheekbones was replaced by hard angles and points.  Deep lines framed his lips. His hair, a more muted ginger than Harry ever remembered, now hung low over his eyes.  

His eyes. 

His eyes were a dull blue without a trace of anything Harry ever associated with Ron.  No spark of temper, no trace of mischief, just empty and silent.

"Ron…" the name escaped his lips in a breathy whisper.

Ron just looked at him and after a long pause, nodded.  "Harry."

In one moment Harry forgot about his own summer and thought of Ron's.  What had happened in the four weeks since they'd they've seen each other to cause such a change in him?  What was it that he'd been going through that would have eaten away so much and aged him so?  Harry's thoughts jumped to a hundred hand-drawn portraits lovingly sketched by an unknown artist…or perhaps not so unknown anymore.

The tightness he had felt earlier was replaced by rage.  Who was she and what did she do to Ron…to his Ron? The question frightened him slightly only less than the possible answer.

"Are you boys hungry?"  Mrs. Weasley asked, staring at Bill who gave a long blink and quietly shook  his head.

"No…no," Ron said.  "I'll just head up to my room." He left, and like a puff of smoke, disappeared into the air.

"What's going on?" Harry asked, his days of waiting patiently to be let in on things over and done with.

"We don't know," Bill replied softly.  "Things started off all right, all things considered.  Every day he seemed to change just a little bit.  He started to get really quiet, started spending more time in his room, started skipping meals.  We ask him questions and he looks at us as if we are speaking a different language."

Harry heard a small sniffle and turned to see Mrs. Weasley holding back tears.  It was then Harry noticed the roadmap of red in her eyes and the dark circles beneath them.  Mrs. Weasley looked older too.  "You'll try, won't you, Harry?" she said, her voice strained and weary.

He could only nod to her as his eyes traveled across the room and up the stairs where his friend disappeared. Without another word, he made his way to Ron's room.

Harry stood in front of Ron's door, trying to listen for any sign of whatever was happening on the other side.  When he was met with quiet he went inside - he had had enough silence this summer.  It was time to put an end to it.  "What's eating you?"

Ron turned to face him.  He was laying on his bed, curled up on his side, his knees nearly touching his elbows. "Wha…what?"

"I said what's eating you?"

Ron's furrowed his brow but he didn't speak. Instead he tucked his chin into his chest and closed his eyes.  

"Ron."  Harry watched as Ron curled in further, as if he was willing himself to be as small as possible, to take up as little space as he could. "Ron," he said again a bit of panic edging into his voice.  It was too much to bear.  It was hard enough dealing with the world; it was made only remotely bearable because of a bond created years ago on a train between two boys starting out on a journey together.  Ron was all he had left in this world, all he truly cared about, and now he was slipping away, too.  How much was he supposed to lose?  "Ron!" he yelled, reaching over and grasping his hands, a forcible yank forcing Ron to look at him.  "Ron, talk to me.  What's wrong?"

Ron started to shake, and his eyes, his aged haunted eyes, stared at Harry as the frightened voice of a child called out hoarsely, "Who's Ron?"

He blinked for nearly a minute as he stared down into Ron's frightened face trying to ingest the words that still hung around him, swirling with the dust in the air.  "What?"

Ron closed his eyes and sighed, dropping his shoulders and seemingly on the verge of collapse.  "Who is Ron?" he repeated slowly.

"You…you are?"

"Right," he said shaking his head.  "I'm Ron and you're Harry. And this is the Burrow. And there's a war with some guy named Voldemort-"

"What did you say?"  Harry interrupted.

"What?

"That last bit."

"There's a war with some guy named Voldemort."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "You've…you've never been able to say his name without flinching before."

Ron sighed dejectedly. "It seems there's a lot about me that's different."

"Who are you?" Harry had barely gotten the last word out when Ron's eyes rolled upward and his head lolled to the side as if detached from his shoulders.  Harry sprang forward grasping his friend's shoulders.  "Ron!"

Within seconds Ron's eyes began to flutter open and Harry noticed a change right away.  The eyes looking back at him now were clearer and more focused, but the biggest change of all was the hint of recognition when they looked upon him.

"Harry…it happened again, didn't it?"  Ron looked forlorn, angry and lost, feelings that Harry understood all too well.

"What's going on? A minute ago you didn't know who you were."

"I don't know, Harry.  I just don't know," he said, sounding defeated.  "It's been going on for weeks.  I keep blacking out and when I wake up everyone just looks at me as if I've lost my mind."

"I don't blame them."

"Like you're the poster boy for mental health," Ron replied bitterly.

"What's that-"

"I'm sorry, all right.  I'm sorry. I'm a bit….edgy.  I don't like losing huge blocks of time."

Harry watched him sit up and try to compose himself. "Your family noticed you're….not yourself?"

Ron just shrugged. "Apparently, I get real quiet and scared looking. I stare a lot without doing much else.  I reckon they just think I'm having a hard time dealing with everything."

"They think you're mental," Harry stated.

"Basically.  I can't say they're wrong."

It was all so very strange to Harry.  Of all the things he expected to come out of this trip, this was no where on his list.  It suddenly occurred to him that he really thought little of what his friends were going through.  It was all he could do to keep his sanity, just dealing with everything going on in his life without the added stress of what was happening to his friends.  Or maybe he just didn't realize that they were affected, too.

"You talked to me," he found himself saying.

"I did? I don't remember anything."

"No…it's like you…it's like you were someone else."

"What, like I'm possessed?"

"I guess," Harry replied with a small shrug.  "You asked who Ron was.  You seemed to have some idea about things…about me and Voldemort."

Harry watched as Ron flinched when he said the name.  "He wasn't scared to say Voldemort's name either."

Ron scowled. "So he's not up on current events. He would have if he knew half what I knew about the bastard."

"That's not what I meant…he seemed to be aware of himself and that things were different… and that he wasn't in the right spot.  He seemed confused."

Ron swung his legs over the side of the bed and rested his elbows on his knees, dropping his head into his hands.  He looked up and Harry noticed again how tired he looked.  "Have you seen the pictures?" Ron asked, jerking his head towards his desk. 

"Pictures?" Harry asked innocently. "What pictures?"

Ron reached over to his desk and moved the book sitting atop the stack of drawings.  With a sigh he handed the stack over to Harry.  "These.  When I wake up from… where ever I go, I find these all around me. "

"Who is she?"

Ron shook his head. "I don't know but she's important…she's…she's special."

Harry flipped through the pictures again, looking at this strange woman's face.  He felt a flush of warmth to his cheeks as he came across some of the more private moments.  The intimacy of some of the drawings made him want to turn away.  He felt as if he was intruding. "How often does it happen?" he asked.

Ron thought for a moment. "It's happening less often, but I'm more disoriented when I get back."

Harry looked at Ron's face and at the fatigue and confusion that took it over. Ron was frightened.  Whatever was happening to him scared him and Harry would do anything to make it better. It was then that he noticed a fading scar on Ron's forearm.  "The brains!" he gasped.

"What?"

"In the Department of Mysteries, when you where wrestling with the brain.  Madame Pomfrey said…she said sometimes thoughts leave the biggest scars or something like that.  What if ...what if they did more than scar?"

Ron's already pale face seem to lose the little color they it possessed. "I'm living someone else's life? "

Harry motioned to the pictures.  "At the very least, it seems  you have someone else's memories."

"But scars heal, don't they?  If I wait long enough maybe it will just go away."

"It might…and it might take a piece of you with it," Harry said to himself as much as to Ron.  "We don't' know what this is, Ron, and I for one am sick of losing things.  I won't lose you…not any part."

Ron nodded slowly. "So what do we do now?"

"I guess wait for him to come back." 

Ron didn't seem overly thrilled by the idea but looked at Harry understandingly. "I reckon that's all we can do."  He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "Harry," he added, "I'm glad you're here."

Harry smiled at his friend.  "Yeah, so am I."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry and Ron spent the next several days on edge.  The rest of the family was so thrilled to see Ron actually interacting with someone they never commented on the fact that every time Ron sneezed, Harry jumped to his side.  No one seemed to notice that Harry was never away from Ron more than five minutes, even for a quick trip the bathroom or a shower. They said nothing about the  silent exchanges shared,  nothing more than raised eyebrows and  shakes of the head at the dinner table.

"I feel like I'm losing my mind," Ron said late one night while lying on his bed, a finger waving in the air, cutting a moon beam shining through his tiny window. "I don't know what I'm waiting for."

Harry was sitting at the foot of the bed, running his fingernail across the spine of the book on his lap – Quidditch-something or other  -- when he looked up.  He felt his stomach knot up when he saw that look in Ron's eyes, the one that made him look so old. "I know," he began, "I know it's hard dealing with something you have no control over.  But I promise you, you won't have to do it alone.  I'll always be here."

They looked at each other for a while, Ron trying to say something without vocalizing the words and Harry trying to understand.  They did that more and more lately, trying to convey in glances and the occasional light touch things that didn't sound right when said aloud, but made perfect sense in the odd little world they'd concocted for themselves. 

Ron saying I'll always be here for you, too.

Harry saying it's a promise you can't make.

Ron saying like hell it isn't.

Ron fell asleep soon after and Harry watched him.  Under the influence of sleep, the hard lines melted away and left behind was just a trace of Harry's childhood friend in all his forgotten youth.  Harry saw beauty in tan freckles on pale pink skin and a long nose, and wanted so much to tell Ron so.  But even now, even when Ron was drifting through some distant dream, Harry couldn't say the words.  He contented himself with brushing Ron's hair behind his ear.  

He carefully got up from Ron's bed. As he eyed his cot in the corner, he instinctively knew he wouldn't be getting any sleep this night.  Too many feelings and thoughts clouding his mind would make sleep too difficult to find, so he made his way downstairs, hoping some warm milk and honey might help things along. He found Author Weasley  hunched over a steaming cup of tea, staring mindlessly into the wafting steam rising from his cup.

"I guess I'm not the only one up tonight," he said without looking up.

"I guess not," Harry replied.  Without anything further he heated his milk and added a spoonful of honey while Mr. Weasley sat staring into his cup.  Without being asked, Harry sat across from him. Holding his cup in both his hands, he began to drink.

"What's wrong with him?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"I don't know yet."

"Is there anything I can do?  Anything any of us can do?"

"I don't know that yet either."

They sat in silence a bit longer before Harry asked, "What do you know about the room in the Department of Mysteries where Ron was attacked?"

Mr. Weasley looked up, his face clearly saying it was the question he was expecting.  "Not much," he began. "Even after all that's happened the Department of Mysteries won't give out information on what is held in its rooms." He sounded bitter.  "I did find out that the brains kept there are those of prodigies, wizards and Muggles, who chose to have that part of themselves preserved.  I think it's research to determine why some are born with magic and some are not.  These brains may be helping to find a sort of missing link."

"But they're alive, aren't they?  They attacked Ron."

"They are the last bits of someone's life. I don't know why that brain attacked Ron.  They are alive, I suppose, but not living.  They  just…exist."

"So they are people who…they never really died?"

"No, I suppose not."

"But you don't know who specifically?"

"No." Mr. Weasley's eyes slowly lowered back to his tea. "They did something to Ron," he stated.  There was nothing of a question in his words.

Harry looked down not sure what to say.  His heart and head both said yes which was odd in and of it self as they rarely agreed on anything these days.  He didn't want to say more to Mr. Weasley because he was afraid of being wrong more than he was afraid of being right.

The silence continued.  

Harry drank his milk slowly, finding some comfort in the warmth spreading through his body starting from his stomach. Mr. Weasley got and walked over to him, placing his hand on Harry's shoulder.  "I trust you," is all he said as he gave Harry's shoulder a light squeeze and walked past.

Somehow, that made the warmth last throughout the night.

The next morning he awoke to find Ron standing by his window, his head against the window pain.  

"Ron," he called hoarsely, the sleep still heavy in his voice.  Ron turned to face him and Harry found a familiar distant look in oddly unfamiliar blue eyes.

"You're not Ron, are you?" he asked.

"No," he said hesitantly. "No, I'm not."

"Who are you?"

"Caleb.  Caleb Entwhistle," he said almost mystified at the words.  "I …I haven't heard that aloud in a long time.  I almost forgot the sound of my own name." He turned back to face out the window.

"This must be very hard for you," Harry ventured, needing to keep the conversation going.

"You've no idea," he replied, his voice full of a melancholy that sounded wrong coming from the red-head.

Though Harry was looking at Ron, he found it all too easy to think of him as Caleb.  He stood differently than Ron did, the inflection and the timbre in his voice were different.  His hair even looked darker.  It was almost as if Ron had become this other person and suddenly, Harry was afraid he might never get Ron back.  "You can't stay, you know."

"Yes," he said sadly.  "I know."

"Why do you keep coming back?"

"I miss it, " he said quietly. "Feeling. Even when all I was feeling was fear and confusion….or sorrow."  

Harry thought of the pictures, of the face etched on a hundred pieces of paper. "Who is she?" he asked.

Caleb smiled softly. "Eleanor," he replied, knowing without needing clarification who Harry was referring to. "She was my Eleanor.  I lost her."

"Did she die?"

"No…I left."

"Why?"

"Because I convinced myself that love was a silly, trivial thing and that my work was more important."

"I gather it wasn't."

He gave a small bitter smile.  "Oh, it was -- to everyone except me.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize that until I woke up in his room, in someone else's body, with someone else's memories.

"It's difficult, you know, not being alive but not being dead, and then suddenly finding yourself breathing again.  Tasting food…reading a book…daydreaming.  A million things you took for granted because they seemed so inconsequential at the time suddenly feeling like the most important things in the world."

He stopped running his hand up and down Ron's frayed curtain. "I thought of staying.  I could easily enough.  Some scars…some scars never do heal properly."

Despite his words, Harry could sense that Caleb was just stating a fact, not detailing his course of action. "But you aren't coming back, are you?"

Caleb shook his head slowly. "No, this will be the last time."

"Why?" Harry asked, needing to hear the words to make sure Ron wasn't going anywhere.

"Because it wouldn't be fair to Ron or you," he answered simply.

"Me?"

He turned to look at Harry, fixing a piercing gaze that made Harry nervous and sad. "You don't know, do you?" Caleb asked.

"Know what?"

Caleb stood for a moment staring at Harry, and seeming to come to a decision, walked to the other side of the room, to a trunk kept in the corner which Harry never noticed before  He got a key kept under a broken figure the broken figure of Viktor Krum and opened the case.  Harry peered inside to see stacks and stacks of papers.  A thousand sheets of paper with his face lovingly sketched on each.

"I would find these everywhere when I woke up, scattered about the room.  I didn't know who you were, but I knew you were important…you were special."

Harry stared in disbelief as he leafed through the piles of pages.  Pictures of him eating, sleeping, reading, playing Quidditch, laughing-- all drawn in meticulous detail.  He felt his legs give way and fell to his knees on the ground.  He clutched a picture of him sitting on his his Hogwarts four-poster tightly to his chest. 

"I made a choice once," Caleb began.  "I put everything else before the one thing that meant the most to me in the world.  I pushed her away because I didn't realize the value of what we had.  In that one moment I lost everything, Harry.  Don't do the same.  I understand that there is a lot going on in your world now and I understand that you and Ron are in the middle of it.  I also see that there is a connection between you both that is rare and precious.  I have only felt an inkling of what he feels for you, and it is overwhelming.  I had to come back this one time.  Just to feel again, but I'm going to let the scars heal.  I'm giving Ron back to you.  Don't waste that gift."

Harry stared at Caleb as the words he was saying and the meaning behind it all slowly permeated his own frazzled consciousness.  He thought briefly of his own summer, of the feeling of oblivion and nothingness that he had felt for weeks, and imagined what it must be like to feel nothing at all ever again. To not exist on any plane. He spent so much time thinking of what he had lost, he forgot to remember all that he had, namely a red haired boy whom he loved and who loved him.  Perhaps not in the way either ever intended, but in the way it was supposed to be, and in a way so real that someone else would give up eternity for them.

"I won't waste it, Caleb. I promise."

Caleb smiled and in an instant he was gone.  Ron's body lurched forward and Harry sprang up to catch him.  He carefully laid him down on the bed and watched, thankful that recognition was slowly creeping into Ron's face.

 "He's gone, isn't he?" Ron asked groggily.

"Yes."

"And he's not coming back."

"No."

"Who was he?"

"A man who made a mistake. "

Ron closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.  Harry watched him breathe in deeply, filling his lungs with air as if it was his first breath of life.  Ron must have noticed something odd about Harry's expression because he asked, "Are you all right?"

"Better than I've been in a long while."

Without another word Harry leaned down and kissed Ron with every ounce of emotion in his young body. Ron's full and slightly chapped lips felt just right beneath Harry's-- supple and pliant and very receptive. Harry slowly wound his fingers in Ron's hair and his breath hitched slightly at what sounded like a sob coming from Ron.  He pulled back and looked into Ron's face finding his best friend staring back a him with joy, mischief and passion – everything that made Ron, Ron.

"What happened?" he asked with some awe, his eyes gliding down to Harry's lips.

Harry smiled broadly. "I just realized what's important to me in this world and chose to do something about it, because sometimes all we have is one moment."

He had wanted to explain himself to Ron a bit more fully, but Ron seemed to have other ideas. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Images started to form around him and garbled sounds slowly began to form words.

"…happened last night.  Whoever it was came in wrecked this tank and left.  Didn't touch anything else.  He had a very specific agenda."

"So it's destroyed?"

"Completely."

"It's murder, it is.  This experiment has been going on for two hundred years, and now someone decides to come along and turn over the tank and just kill it.  It's murder."

"It wasn't really alive though, was it….."

He looked down as he listened to their words, and with some astonishment realized he was looking at his own feet.  Transparent grey mist and haze, but they were his feet…and legs…and hands.  He looked around to the room full of people wandering about and examining the damage but taking no notice to the simple fact that they were not alone. He had no idea what was going on, but he had not intention of finding out.  Something told him he needed to be somewhere else.  With a nod and a smile he floated through the far wall and out of the Department of Mysteries forever.

Some time later, several hours perhaps or even days, he found himself in a strange castle, one he had never been to in his life, but one that held something very precious to him.  He slowly drifted to where she sat, looking just as he remembered.

"Hello, Eleanor," he said softly.

The Grey Lady of Ravenclaw looked up and smiled.  "Caleb," she said breathlessly.  "I've been waiting for you."

_Finis_


End file.
